


Deeper the Dream

by imperfectkreis



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Closeted Character, Established Relationship, Found Family, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Secret Relationship, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 09:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14891582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: Ajay Ghale steals a Goddess. Sabal arrives in California to collect what should belong to Kyrat, to him.





	Deeper the Dream

Pagan Min is dead, and Ajay doesn’t know how to leave Kyrat.

And he doesn’t mean metaphorically, though he probably means that too. His passport is long gone, probably eaten by a tiger or some shit. But in the aftermath of the war, he doesn’t even know how he crosses the border back into India to reach the embassy. Fuck, he doesn’t know a fucking thing.

He paces around his parents’ house, wearing the floorboards down. They say the war has ended, but Ajay still feels bullets in his blood. He just wants to go home. He wants to go home to California and stick his head in Venice Beach. He want to forget the last six months. He wants to forget the last six years, sixteen, twenty-six. Panicking, he wishes he had never been born when it hits him that his birth and life and impending death are all tied up in this fucking country that he still can’t wrap his head around.

Sitting against the wall, Ajay spreads his legs out in front of him, staring at his shoes. He’s going to lose his goddamn mind if he stays in this house. If he leaves, he doesn’t know what to do but kill. 

Oh, fuck. He’s killed so many people.

His throat feels tight and his hands clammy when the walkie-talkie on the table by the door chirps to life.

“Ah-jae? Brother?” Sabal tries to get his attention.

Not picking up isn’t an option, so Ajay pushes himself to his feet. He picks up the radio, holding down the talk button to confirm, “I’m here,” trying to push the exhaustion and fear from his voice.

Sabal invites him to the temple, to witness the Tarun Matara’s ascension. Ajay asks how Bhadra is holding up?

“The goddess is ready for what must be done.”

“Can I see her?” Ajay asks, his thumb stroking over the speaker, trying to feel the vibrations of Sabal’s answer through the slotted plastic. He already knows that Sabal will decline his request.

\--

Ajay takes one last mission in Kyrat. One of his own making. A selfish, hopeless thing. He knows where they are keeping Bhadra. And that’s the only information that he needs.

Three Golden Path guards with slit throats; an attendant to the Goddess, who he drugs with a needle of opium. And a truck decked in blue streamers, ensuring safe passage to the border. 

Ajay Ghale steals a Goddess. One who thanks him with wet eyes.

\--

They have the money to pay for illicit transit back into the States. No one asks why an American is traveling with a Kyrati girl. Ajay doesn’t make excuses for himself. Thinking the worst of him might be their safest option.

\--

Bhadra can’t read English. No one ever taught her. But she reads Kyrati and Hindi and she’s certain that she can learn. They eat frozen pizza off of the cardboard disk it came in, and talk about how they’re going to get her into school.

“Don’t you have friends?” she asks, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm, trying to clear the grease. They sit side by side on Ajay’s double mattress, doing their best to keep crumbs off the sheets. 

“Not that kind of friends.”

She bites down hard on the crust, flakes falling into her lap.

That night, they sleep side by side, Bhadra closer to the wall, Ajay by the door. He keeps his pistol, smuggled across the sea, like Bhadra, like himself, by the bedside. Sleep doesn’t come for him, only anxiety, tendrils of shadows clawing at his skin.

—

Bhadra says to take her to Artesia. Ajay asks her how she knows about Artesia? She only shrugs, saying that she looked it up on the phone he bought her at the corner shop. The cheapest Android he could find on a prepaid card. Once he finds a job, he’ll buy her whatever she wants. He’s going to buy her books and clothes for school, and pay someone to cut her hair in any style she wants. He’ll get her signed up for soccer or painting classes. She’ll just have to say the word and Ajay will give her the world.

They drive out for the day in Ajay’s 2008 Civic. He was surprised to find it still in one piece, and the acquaintance he’d let borrow it while he was gone willing to part so easily with it.

He’s not as good at parallel parking as he used to be. Being so cautious of the cars around him feels strange, after so many months of using jeeps as battering rams.

Ajay sticks close to Bhadra’s side as she traverses from store to store, rattling off in Hindi with each shopkeeper what she’s looking for. Even though Ajay doesn’t understand a word they say, he can parse a lot from tone. Most start out all sweetness at the sight of a pretty girl. Then they grow angry with each subsequent chirping question.

In the last shop, Bhadra asks to buy a can of chilled, tinned coconut water. Ajay fishes five dollars out of his wallet so she can buy two. Smiling brightly, she bounces away, her ponytail swaying with every step.

She meets him back on the curb, holding out one can for him to take. She drinks so fast that sticky water runs down her chin, drying on her neck. Ajay chews slowly at the chunks of pulp left in his mouth. He doesn’t like the texture, but he likes the taste.

“I need six hundred dollars,” Bhadra tells him plainly, once her drink is done.

Ajay tells her he has the money, but not on him. An ATM won’t dispense that much.

They return to Artesia the next weekend, and by the start of August, Ajay is another three thousand down from his mother’s estate, but Bhadra has a passport that says she was born in Wisconsin, and a birth certificate from Milwaukee.

Ajay has a job moving boxes off the trucks at the grocer within walking distance of their studio. The manager clapped him on the shoulder when Ajay told him he’s a veteran. The old man with yellowed teeth and bright blue eyes told Ajay he could tell. War sends men back differently. Ajay bit his tongue.

Bhadra comes home from school the first day with a bright smile and a dozen stories. She doesn’t think reading will be a problem. At least, not for very long. She just has to learn what sound goes with which letter! Ajay can’t bring himself to tell her it’ll probably not be quite that easy and later that evening starts searching online for a tutor.

—

It’s October, and though it never gets that cold in LA, he buys Bhadra a cranberry pea coat when he catches her shivering coming home from school. The air is cooler, drier than she’s ever been used to. And he should have known better than to let her go to school in shirtsleeves.

They’re standing in the cereal aisle at Target, because Ajay hates shopping where he works. He’s got applications out to a bunch more places now, hoping to find something more consistent, more money, and with fucking healthcare. Something is wrong with his fucking knee and he’s pretty sure it’s from that time a tiger bit him and the Golden Path medic had to patch it up so his kneecap wouldn’t just fall the fuck off and fucking hell, how does he explain that to a doctor?

But Bhadra is playing on her phone and managing to sort of not make a decision about what she wants for breakfast every morning for the next two weeks when Ajay’s phone vibrates in his pocket. Fishing his phone out, he looks at the screen, not recognizing the number other than it popping as a 661 area code. He frowns at the phone but answers, trying to hold it a couple of centimeters from his ear like Bhadra told him too after she saw another student’s presentation about radiation.

“Hello?”

“Ah-jae?”

Ajay freezes, his phone clutched tightly in his hand. Next to him Bhadra doesn’t even notice, trying to rearrange brightly colored jewels on the screen into sequences of four.

“What?” he tries his very best not to let fear creep into his voice, frustration in his skin. 

“Where are you?” Sabal sounds out of breath, like he’s been running around. But the background noise is so distinctly LAX that Ajay doesn’t have a moment to doubt where he is.

“At Target,” Ajay says, like that will mean anything to Sabal. Trying to choose his words carefully, Ajay wants to avoid upsetting Bhadra, if he can. He’s not going to keep this from her, but he also doesn’t want to give Sabal more rope to hang him with. “What are you doing here….”

“I’ve come to see you, brother. And the Tarun Matara. I take it she is well?”

For all of Bhadra’s distraction, her attention zeros in at her former title. Her pale eyes widen at the syllables over the speaker, even if she doesn’t recognize the voice through the distortion. 

Ajay puts his hand on her shoulder, mouthing “it’s okay,” even though he’s not certain that it is.

“If you give me your address, I can meet you there,” Sabal offers, the ambient noise behind him growing louder as the baggage claim announcement for the flight from Seoul comes in.

Ajay runs scenarios through his head, he could give Sabal a false address, or simply tell him to fuck off. _Go home,_ Ajay left him with the country he so desperately wanted. One he can rule as a petty king. There is no one left to stand in Sabal’s way.

“I’ll come get you,” Ajay offers, “I have a car. Let me know which terminal.”

Sabal has to look around for a moment for the information that Ajay needs. Once they’ve confirmed, Ajay hangs up, turning to explain to Bhadra.

“Sabal. He’s here. Um,” Ajay looks at his phone again, flipping through the numbers he has stored. “Clara? Did you think her moms would let you stay over? I don’t want you anywhere near him. Not yet.”

Bhadra looks at him with wide eyes, but her shoulders relax a little. She’s brave. Braver than she should ever have to be. But it’s still his responsibility to keep her safe. And Ajay doesn’t think that Sabal is dumb enough to try and get in past the doorman and take the elevator up to the sixth floor of the building where Clara lives, then fight off her two moms, one of whom was an Olympic-level field hockey player ten years back.

“Yeah,” she scrolls through her text messages, firing off one to Clara. 

They’re already mostly done with shopping, so they finish up with what they need to grab as Bhadra texts with her friend. While they’re in the self-checkout she confirms with Ajay that it’s okay and Ajay makes a mental note to call Clara’s moms later and thank them for looking after her on such short notice.

“Clara wants to know if you have a date,” Bhadra smiles, despite the gravity of the situation. 

“That’s not funny,” Ajay says, scanning each individual packet of ham and tossing it into the canvas bag.

“She’s thinks you’re hot.”

Ajay groans, “Let's not talk about this, okay.”

He drops Bhadra off in front of Clara’s building before turning towards the airport. The radio plays the same pop songs that were on an hour ago when they were heading to the store. It’s another hour until he pulls up to the vestibule at LAX, Sabal looks haggard and exhausted. Dead on his feet. Serves him right.

Ajay has to reach over the console and open the passenger door for him, shouting to get Sabal’s attention. The car is pretty nondescript. Popping the trunk, Ajay then realizes there was no need, Sabal has a backpack and nothing else.

“She’s not here,” is the first thing past Sabal’s lips, not so much as a ‘hello.’ “Where is she?”

“With a friend. You can see her tomorrow. I guess,” Ajay puts the car into drive, heading back towards their apartment.

Not knowing what else to say, he fiddles with the radio, flipping from station to station in the hopes that nothing else will matter. The hopes that maybe he’ll wake up. That he won’t be shoved into this coupe with a man he’d left behind. A man he didn’t know how to leave. But Ajay put one foot in front of the other, repeated the process until he ended up back at the start.

“She is safe?”

“Of course she is,” Ajay snaps. Here Bhadra is loved and respected and herself. Not some figurehead she never asked to be. Not Sabal’s pretty puppet.

Sabal frowns, his mouth opening and closing again. The drive back is long, stuck in heavy traffic. But Ajay doesn’t want to have this fight now. He didn’t want to have this fight ever. But just sitting next to Sabal, unexpected and unwanted, makes his blood boil hot. And he wants to throw everything, everything he’s held back these months in Sabal’s face. He wants to tell him that Amita is alive, that Pagan Min offered him Kyrat on a silver platter, if only he had the balls to kill Sabal. That Ajay was at the precipice of becoming the monster that he knows he could be, but he stepped back. He stepped back and breathed.

That he misses the friction of Sabal’s body against his, even if what they did together is something Sabal will never admit aloud.

Once parked, Ajay leads Sabal to his apartment, clinking through his keys to open the door. Sabal looks around the tiny room, clearly dismayed that his Goddess lives in such paltry accommodations. Surely now that the war is over, Bhadra could be kept in opulence.

“Once I get a better job,” Ajay makes excuses, even though he doesn’t have to explain himself to Sabal, “we’ll move someplace where she can have more privacy.”

Sabal walks slowly into the center of the room, just short of the mattress and box spring that Ajay and Bhadra still share. The money exists, but Ajay has to be careful, spending on what is most important and saving where he can. Moving anywhere else is a big commitment, and he’d rather pay for a writing tutor.

“What are you doing here, Ajay?” Sabal shakes his head, still facing the opposite wall, where the single window lets light in during the morning hours but not the evening. “You and Bhadra belong in Kyrat. You both belong with me.”

Ajay knows that Sabal will never understand, no matter how precisely Ajay explains himself. Kyrat is a wound inside of him, one that will fester and burn, linger until it kills him. But that won’t be today, or tomorrow, or the next. His time is borrowed, but he still holds it in his hands. “We don’t, we don’t Sabal. You’re not taking her away.”

“I did not come only for her,” Sabal says, finally turning around. His eyes look lighter than they should. “You should come home, Ajay,” reaching out, Sabal takes the lapels of Ajay’s windbreaker in his hands, holding tight to keep their bodies close.

He wouldn’t dare touch Ajay like this where anyone could see. Would never breathe a word of it to a single soul back in Kyrat. Ajay knows Sabal wants him, wants to give himself to Ajay too. But only under the strictest of conditions, restrictions that Ajay can’t bear to abide. 

With Sabal this close, Ajay can smell the salt along his skin, the staleness of recycled airplane air, and Kyrat still in his hair. Ajay dips his head, pressing his nose against Sabal’s ear, traitorous hands coming to wrap around Sabal’s hips as their bodies start to grind together.

Ajay thinks, with giddy, terrifying uncertainty, that if only he can stop himself from kissing Sabal, he still walks out of this in one piece.

“Why is Kyrat my home, Sabal?” Ajay asks, letting his lips brush against the shell of Sabal’s ear. Just as slowly, deliberately, he starts to pull Sabal’s shirt loose from the waistband of his jeans, giving Ajay enough space to press warm fingertips to the bare skin of Sabal’s back, scarred, but still soft, inviting.

Sabal smiles, closes his eyes, tries to turn his head towards Ajay’s mouth. His hair brushes against Ajay’s cheek, “Because I am there, and so is everything you’ve made possible.”

Ajay knows now that he is weak, because Sabal strokes his fingers against the center of his chest, tapping however softly against his sternum. He has no desire for Kyrat, but the memory of Sabal beneath him, legs spread and the head of his cock wet and ready, sends him spinning. Until he’s pushing Sabal towards the mattress, tearing off his own coat and shirt in the process.

Sabal smiles against him as they collapse into bed, Ajay pawing at Sabal’s clothes, anxious, ready to press skin to skin. Spreading his legs, Sabal lets Ajay slot between them, the heavy fabric of their jeans catching against the grain as Ajay thrusts into the apex of Sabal’s thighs.

“Fuck,” Ajay curses, grabbing tightly to Sabal’s hair, planting is other hand at Sabal’s side to support his weight.

Sabal’s eyes drift closed, he never watches when Ajay touches him, really touches him. Ajay still can’t let himself bring their lips together, but he kisses Sabal’s eyelids, featherlight as he unhooks the button to Sabal’s pants, opening the fly. He strokes his hand from Sabal’s stomach down, remembering each dip and scar from their hurried meetings, secreted away.

He strokes Sabal now in the circle of his hand, Sabal’s cock hard and heavy, slipping across Ajay’s palm. Ajay pleads, “Talk to me,” because in the quiet of this room, an ocean away from the horrors that they shared, no one cares who they are or what they’ve done. As long as they don’t know they’re monsters in respectable clothing. Ghosts already, haunting bags of bone and flesh.

“Ajay,” Sabal gasps, his thighs tightening around Ajay’s hips. And fuck, fuck, Ajay wants to be inside him, pulling Sabal apart at the seams, grabbing hold of what Sabal would never give him. Not enough time, too dangerous, isn’t this enough?

“I want to fuck you,” Ajay states, keeping the tremor out of his voice the best he can. “I want to fuck you,” he repeats when Sabal finally opens his eyes.

“I...no,” Sabal refuses him again.

Frustrated now, Ajay pulls at Sabal faster, driving him towards his end, ripping his orgasm hard and fast, letting milky semen spread across the back of his hand and between his fingers as Sabal cries out beneath him.

Ajay pulls open his pants, rutting his cock against Sabal’s stomach, grabbing hold of it to put it between Sabal’s legs. Pushing his legs on the outside of Sabal’s, Ajay thrusts his cock between Sabal’s clamped thighs instead, sticky with Sabal’s cum already. Grabbing hold of Sabal’s wrists, Ajay pins him to the mattress, thrusting until his release curls and bursts, the frenzy he’s worked himself into peaking and fading out.

He’s panting by the time he releases Sabal’s hands. Sitting back across Sabal’s legs, Ajay wipes the sweat from his forehead, looking for his shirt so he can try to clean up the mess across Sabal’s stomach and between his legs.

Once Ajay climbs off, Sabal walks off to the bathroom without a word. The water runs, Ajay puts the kettle on to make tea. He can hear Sabal showering and he tries not to care as he puts on clean boxers.

While the tea brews, Ajay pulls up the sheets. There won’t be time to wash them before tomorrow, but he has another set in the basket filled with clean laundry. He makes the bed, adds lemon to his tea and milk and sugar to Sabal’s.

Sabal returns from the shower, his hair wet and a towel wrapped around his waist. Ajay averts his eyes as he searches through his backpack, pulling on decent clothes.

They stand in the tiny kitchen, chipped linoleum countertops and all, drinking their tea as Sabal’s hair dries and curls, falling just long enough to skim his shoulders, now that it’s not tied up.

“Bhadra should return to Kyrat...she knows her place is there,” Sabal argues, “the stability of our country.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Ajay says through gritted teeth. “If you cannot hold a country without a fifteen year old girl, you do not deserve to rule.”

Sabal laughs, the teacup still in his hand, “Do you think Bhadra feels the same? That she wishes to see Kyrat burn?”

“You’re a coward, Sabal,” Ajay drops his cup into the sink.

“And you are the one who lit the match and ran away.”

Grabbing Sabal by the front of his shirt, Ajay slams him against the fridge. “I did not ask for this. I never wanted this,” he hisses. “You wanted Kyrat and you have it. You don’t get Bhadra too,” or me, Ajay finally admits. “Make. It. Work.”

Sabal is smart enough to know he cannot best Ajay in hand-to-hand. He may be more experienced in war, but Ajay has both weight and anger on his side. Letting go, Ajay steps away, asking, with all the politeness in his voice, when Sabal is leaving.

“I have appointments in New York tomorrow. I fly out in the morning.”

Ajay laughs, “Playing diplomat now? I’m surprised you didn’t delegate.”

“There are matters I can trust no one with,” unspoken, Ajay knows that Sabal would have trusted him.

Ajay frowns, “in the morning, we’ll take Bhadra and her friend out to breakfast. You can see her then. Alright? Everyone thinks I’m her uncle...so I guess you’re just my friend from Kyrat.”

“Alright,” Sabal concedes.

Ajay texts Bhadra to let her know. She texts back quickly that it’s fine. Ajay shouldn’t worry, she knows he won’t let anything happen to her. And Ajay’s heart feels so full that he could scream.

Before they go to bed, Ajay opens the window to let the night air inside the room. Sabal sleeps on the side of the bed Bhadra usually occupies, facing the wall away from Ajay. And, despite everything, maybe because of everything, Ajay doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel. How he’s supposed to cope with the open wound inside of him. One that aches and tears, when he wakes up in the morning with Sabal pressed against his chest.

Ajay doesn’t know how to leave Kyrat, even when he’s thousands of miles away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


End file.
